The controlling narrative in the national media in recent weeks and months has been one of angry Americans protesting taxes and “big government.”

“Tea party” participants, including many older Americans who receive assistance from Social Security and Medicare, have put forward the argument that government spending is a thing to be feared and despised.

Now Americans from all walks of life are fighting back. Not against the tea party people per se – although in some places that is happening – but against cuts in services at the local and state level that threaten our schools, children, families and communities. These Americans are taking to the streets and filling up public hearings with a simple and increasingly common message:

We want to pay for the things that are important to us. For this to happen, everyone must pay their fair share, including corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

The largest such rally took place earlier this month in Springfield, Illinois. A crowd of 15,000 strong marched on the state capitol, demanding that legislators raise taxes in order to address a $12 billion budget deficit. “Show some guts! Avoid the cuts!” the crowd chanted.

What were groups such as AARP, AFSCME, Citizen Action/Illinois and SEIU protesting? Many of the same things people are concerned about across the country: the specter of tens of thousands of teachers laid off, high student-to-teacher ratios, libraries shuttered, home health care workers and day care providers cut.

While few national outlets covered the rally, it received saturation coverage at home – and some in the media compared it with the much smaller tea party protests. Here’s what Chicago’s local NBC-TV affiliate had to say:

“So you thought 2010’s biggest, populist movement was a tax revolt? You may be wrong. The demonstration taking place in Springfield today is going to make a tea party rally look like…a tea party. More than 15,000 protestors are clogging the state capitol to demand that legislators raise their taxes…The tea party may be the angriest movement in America today. But it is not the biggest, or the best organized.” [Emphasis added.]

The clamor for keeping important government services (like schools) operating at current strength is not limited to Springfield. Consider:

• In Atlanta, protestors this month marked giant “X”s in red paint on buses and trains – indicating which ones would be eliminated if proposed, Draconian cuts to mass transit are implemented.

• In Cleveland, hundreds of people this month crammed into a public hearing to oppose the city’s decision to lay off more than 500 teachers in order to make up a $53 million deficit. That decision would result in a 40-1 student-teacher ratio in Cleveland’s classrooms.

  

• In New Jersey this week, thousands of high school students cut school one day this week to protest Gov. Christie’s proposed education cuts. “We can’t cut, why can you?” the students chanted.

• In conservative enclaves from Burbank, Ca., to Greenville, S.C. taxpayers similarly are protesting proposed cuts to the schools.

• In Pennsylvania, USAction partner Penn Action is battling proposed cuts in Supplemental Security Income (which serves 67,000 children), pre-kindergarten programs, Head Start, libraries and adult and family literacy programs.

• In Rhode Island, legislators are considering devastating cuts to cities and towns, further cuts to schools and higher education, cuts to public employee pensions, severe cuts to all state agencies, and potential cuts to Medicaid and other social services. Ocean State Action and the Campaign for Rhode Island’s Priorities are actively opposing the cuts.

So what is being done to stand up for the new silent majority – those Americans who believe that government, effectively managed, can make a difference in people’s lives?

On the ground and in Washington, D.C., much is happening. On the ground, USAction affiliates coast to coast are rallying and organizing to oppose damaging budget cuts. In Washington, D.C., USAction has helped form Jobs for America Now, the nation’s largest jobs coalition. Jobs for America Now is supporting the Local Jobs for America Act, a $100 billion proposal that would create or save one million jobs in local communities, including in several areas this memo has discussed.

In early May, USAction and its state affiliates will launch an intensive national program to train the next wave of urban, suburban and rural activists on how to organize around the most pressing economic issues facing our country. This new wave of activism will advance the broader movement to strengthen American communities and create jobs while reforming and rebuilding our economy.

Meanwhile, we are calling on the media to tell the whole story regarding taxes, joblessness and the role of government in our lives. For the public to be served, all sides of this story need and deserve to be covered. And that’s a brew we can all savor.

David Elliot is the Communications Director at USAction

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